She ran out of the forest and dove into the turmoil that was West Ford with its over one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. These early mornings just a smidgen after sunrise were always the busiest time of the day. Dulcea arrived just at the time when the people were waking up and the night watch was changing shifts. Tens of thousands of soldiers were already chatting, training, and breakfasting throughout the camp. Cries and surprised gasps followed her as she hurried through the outskirts of the camp in search of the warrior priest Myoden. She paused for only moments at a time—asking people to spread the news of her return and to gather for her public address in two hours’ time.
She reached the War Tent an hour later, but neither Myoden nor Nemnyan were present. Dulcea asked the guards after the priest, and they directed her to the infirmary. The Hospital Tent was huge: made of twenty large connected pavilion tents. The site was busy like always, with more than a hundred healers fighting death and disease within its discolored white walls, but she did not see the priest anywhere.
“Where is General Myoden?” Dulcea asked one of the other healers. “Is he not here?”
A sudden loud crash of shattering glass sliced through the air. Dulcea turned around and saw her second-in-command in his billowy white robes by the innermost tent’s doorway. Long silver wisps had escaped his braided hair already, alluding to a rough, hasty morning. Myoden looked alarmed, with broken healing potions laying scattered at his feet.
Dulcea blinked. Seeing him now, after thinking she would never see him or any of her friends again, was almost akin to meeting him for the first time.
She gasped. She sniffled and laughed. The world was finally right again.
---
The Silverwoods, near the Sraeynian border. Cold Winter Moon (winter season 7087 - 7088).
The first year of the Rebellion.
The beautiful forest of the Silverwoods was no more. The decades had been unkind. In her memory, the forest of her childhood was a forest in gentle twilight, with fireflies dancing among the ancient trees. Dulcea recalled the gentle breeze, the streams of crystal-clear water, and the almost overpowering scent of moss and flowers. Now, a hundred years later, only silent, barren plains remained of the once mighty elven empire. Somewhere tiny groves were still standing, and closest to the mountains where the River Jemai flowed, there were still forests. Damp mist hung over the landscape like a sad ghost.
Dulcea followed the mountain streams toward the small patches of green in the horizon. The pain of loss increased in her chest with every step she took. What madness had happened to the place she had loved so well? Over two hundred miles of beautiful old forests reduced to ash and tree stumps! Why had the proud elven realm encountered such tragedy now, when the first five hundred years of slavery had left it intact?
By the time Dulcea reached the shadowy forest path leading into the capital city of Quel Serana, it was already late into the night. The moment she set foot in the dark forest, a group of elven warriors surrounded her, pointing their swords at her.
Dulcea gazed at their alert, vigilant faces, and all at once she grasped the momentousness of what had transpired in her absence. When she left, her people had been slaves. Now, she returned to find the forest all but gone and the remains controlled by warriors of her own kind. It could only mean that at some point there must have been a rebellion. The notion filled her with glee, and Dulcea took a deep breath to calm herself.
“Brothers, sisters…” she said Quelthae, their native tongue. “I am Dulcea Silanquel; I am one of you.”
The warrior closest to her frowned. “Silanquel? The noble House of Silanquel?” He sounded incredulous. “I remember the House of Silanquel, but the family is dead these past ten years at least. Who are you, and what ill tidings do you bring?”
Dead! Her face paled with shock, and her blood ran cold with grief and nausea. She had delayed her return too long. She was too late. Her father Quilan had died a few months before her escape to Sraeyn, but the news of her mother Maiellra came as a surprise. Dulcea’s knees buckled under her, and she stumbled.
“I- I am no harbinger. I bring you no ill tidings.” She forced herself back upright. “I left this country in secret almost a century ago and journeyed to the illusionists’ guild in Sraeyn to study.”
“You deserter!” A hard-faced man spat in her direction. “Only cowards hide while the rest of us fight!”
“No, Dhinn.” One of the female warriors lowered her sword. “If Lady Silanquel has indeed studied the forbidden arts and has come back to us, then I believe she can be of help.”
“But Lyssanra! We don’t even know if she speaks the truth!”
“Would you have me prove myself?” Dulcea asked. “I am a master illusionist. I came back because I wanted to do something for my country. Had I known how bad things were, I would have returned sooner.”
Five men continued to hold her at sword point, while a few others gathered to deliberate her words. After a long while, the elves agreed to deem her a friend of the nation.
Two of them set out to guide her to the capital city to meet their leader. There had always been strong resentment toward their human lords among the elves, and her escorts told her that thirty-five years earlier the elves had rebelled at last. A young warrior by the name of Loden had inspired his people to rebel, and the enraged Sarusean armies had retaliated by destroying much of the ancient woodland realm. Now, only a sprinkle of trees remained around the two largest elven cities, and the fighting had dwindled away to mere ambush tactics and partisan war.
Dulcea listened in silence, appalled and frightened by what she heard. Her mother was dead, and the home she returned to was not the one she had left.
A day later they reached the city of Quel Serana, suspended in mid-air and built over a series of connecting tree branches like all the architecture in the woods. Her heart was melancholic, but she tried not to pay attention to the miserable state of affairs everywhere around her. Her hometown was in ruins, but asides the heart-wrenching sorrow, pride and determination also bubbled within her.
Dulcea knew something her kin did not: she possessed the means to save them. The mighty golden dragons were on her side.
What would you have us give our life for, little one? Honor maybe? Dignity perhaps? The Adegan Clan leader Amparo Darksun demanded, his deep voice booming in her head. Can you offer us all that?
She was a different person now. That ambitious but directionless young sorceress from the White Tower days was no more. Dulcea had used the dragonstone, and the struggle to earn the clan’s respect had changed her entire way of looking at herself. The dragons had not humored her, and while a woman less determined might have given up then, Dulcea’s courage only rose with every question asked.
Her escorts Miandros and Lyssanra took her to meet their leader, Myoden Eifhanonquel. He was a warrior high priest: a servant to the God Lordanys. Dulcea followed the elven warriors into a shabby little tree house, pausing at the door. She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if they were in the right house. She knew the elves’ current rebel leader to be a man, but there were only two people in the room, and neither was whom she expected.
There was a bed in the room, on which lay a warrior woman, her clothes soaked in blood. There was blood on the sheets and on the floor, too, but there was no pain on the woman’s face, and she did not look ill or dying. A tall, graceful-looking healer stood next to her: her long silver hair braided into a messy plait, and her white robes bloodstained and smeared. The healer had her back to Dulcea and the two warriors who had entered with her. From the calmness of the scene Dulcea could tell the healing was almost over. Lyssanra stepped forward, brushing Dulcea’s shoulder as she passed.
“Excuse me, Lord Myoden?”
The healer raised a hand, pleading silence, and continued administering a few potions before turning around to face them. Dulcea saw then that he was indeed male. The men of her kin rarely wore their hair so long or braided, and his feminine appearanc
e had made her jump into conclusions.
“I’ve a newcomer to see you, Lord Myoden,” Lyssanra said. “A lady of the Silanquel family.”
A brief flash of shock flitted over his face, but then he raised an eyebrow and gave her a kind smile.
“Is that so? This is the wayward daughter of Lady Maiellra then? How good to see you, my lady. I hope your journey here wasn’t too tiresome.”
Dulcea blinked, unable to utter a word for her surprise. What was this man’s connection to her mother? Myoden moved to wash his hands in a bowl of water on the nearby table, after which he addressed them again.
“Lyssanra, please go tell Aramny his wife lives, but that he should come here and tend to her. She will sleep the next twelve-hour at least, perhaps even longer. I will speak with Lady Silanquel.”
She nodded and left, taking Miandros with her. Myoden gestured for Dulcea to follow them outside.
“We will go to the temple,” he said. “Lady Taisha needs to rest to recover from her ordeal.”
“Yes, as you wish.” Dulcea exited the house.
He followed her. “So, my lady, what is your story?” he asked, leading her through the ruined city.
Dulcea gazed at him in calculated silence, wondering at his easy manner. She did not sense the same depthless despair from him that she had felt in the eyes and speech of the others she had met so far. He, too, had silver white hair and green eyes like the rest of their kin, but his hair was longer than hers. It only made him look feminine from behind; he had the lean build of a warrior, and his features were handsome. Dulcea also noticed that despite his priest’s robes, Myoden carried twin swords on his sides. He was such a curious character that she found it difficult to take her eyes off him.
Dulcea only realized she was staring at him when Myoden stopped to gaze at her with a hearty laugh.
She stammered. “M-my name is Dulcea. It’s a pleasure to meet you, my lord.” She hesitated. “May I ask a personal question? From your response I gather you knew my mother Maiellra. Is that true?”
“Yes, I knew her.” The priest looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “Your mother joined the healers’ guild in Qalad Iltanea not long after you left abroad to study. She was the head of the healers when I first returned to the Silverwoods. I also studied abroad, you see. This was about twenty years ago.”
The knowledge was comforting. Despite her family’s high status, her parents had never conformed to social norms. Culture and tradition expected widows to remain unmarried and to fade into obscurity; not something Dulcea could fathom her mother doing. It pleased her to know she had not spent her last years mourning her dead husband and absent daughter. Instead, she had done something worthwhile.
“That sounds like my mother.” She smiled. “It is something she would do. Healing crafts have always been her forte. My great-grandmother was a great healer; mother says she was very famous.”
“Mishreya, yes. We all know the legend of her.”
Dulcea nodded, falling silent, and after a while Myoden continued, his voice serious but calm.
“Your mother often talked of you. She was a mentor to me but for a short decade, but she was like a mother to me, too. I lost both my parents when I was still a boy and had only just reached adulthood when I returned home from my training in Miranma.”
Dulcea frowned, stunned by the priest’s confession. With elves, unless they were still children or already elderly, it was impossible to determine one’s age just by looking at them. It was more his manner and his speech than anything else that made Dulcea suspect just how young the Silver Elves’ rebel leader really was. The priest could not have been more than her age and might have even been several years younger.
“So, I understand you went to Sraeyn?”
“Yes,” she said. “I studied illusion magic at the White Tower in Sraeyn. It was a safe and secluded place, and I did not know much about the misery of the world outside for a long time. For years, like scared turtles, we shut ourselves in our safe ignorance with spells and rituals.”
She paused for a moment, rubbing her arm. Apprehension simmered in her veins.
“What about the imperial family?” Dulcea asked. “They were still alive when I left.”
“The emperor and his daughters, yes. They are well and will remain so in hiding.”
“What?” Her temper flared, recalling the accusations against her. “They are hiding?”
“The Saruseans think them dead, and we have thought it better for things to remain that way,” Myoden said. “Then, when the time comes, the emperor can resume his throne again. This way we’ll not have a civil war on our hands. It is our duty and honor to protect the emperor and his daughters.”
“The logic of your words is sound, but to think the emperor and his family should spend their life in such a fashion! You, his subjects, are facing certain death before a formidable foe, and Emperor Greymex remains in hiding?”
“We have not given up hope yet,” he said. “And until we do, we will keep the emperor safe.”
“You think there is hope then?” she asked after a brief silence. “You think we can win?”
“I believe there is always hope, my lady,” the warrior priest said. “The situation is not as bad as it was ten years ago when Lord Loden died. After his death there was a debate about who should continue at the head of the resistance, and it threatened to decimate us. We began to fight amongst ourselves, and the Saruseans, knowing our leader to be dead, only attacked fiercer. I was not even fighting at the time but was the… new head of the healers.”
Her stomach twisted, the underlying meaning in his words clear.
“… How did you become the new rebel leader?”
“A hot-headed warrior of the Rivenquel family staked a claim on the position left vacant by Lord Loden,” Myoden said, his smile a little self-ironic. “Well, some took offense to that. Someone told him he would rather see a healer leading us, so Lord Rivenquel challenged me to a duel. We fought, and I beat him. We had a large audience, and I suppose it impressed them enough that they asked me to be their new leader.”
“Did he know you were such a remarkable swordsman?”
“Yes, he did. Ayas Rivenquel is a good, honorable man—he would never challenge someone who had no weapon skills. He had even seen me fight. What gave me an advantage was the fact that he underestimated me: thinking I had given up practice since I became a priest to Lordanys.”
Dulcea grinned. “But you hadn’t.”
“No.” The priest gave a laugh before resuming their long-interrupted trek through the darkening tree city. “Contrary to common belief, my years of training outside the Silverwoods had only honed my skills. The temple I studied and trained in was an illegal one in Sheliath, in Miranma. Despite Sheliath’s illustrious history as a merchant town of the sea elves, these days it is a very dangerous place. All the priests there carry weapons; we had to fight local thugs and thieves almost daily. Ayas Rivenquel knows not to judge people with such haste anymore.”
Myoden paused, waiting to see if she had anything to comment or ask, but Dulcea remained silent.
“I have overseen our survival for almost ten years now. In that time, I have witnessed but a scarce few others return to us from faraway lands.”
He crossed a narrow tree bridge to another part of the city and turned to see that she followed.
“I would have come back sooner, had it only been possible, but the guild of enchanters does not work that way.” She wrinkled her nose. “Once you enter, they do not allow you to leave, unless on specific errands.”
“Who guided you to the White Tower, my lady?” Myoden asked. “I confess I did not know there were people in the Silverwoods who still knew its location.”
“My guide was a man called Xanein the Wanderer. He was an enchanter, but he lived in Quel Serana, disguised as a blacksmith. A friend to my father, he taught me something of magic when I was a child, and seeing my talent, he agreed to guide me to his guild in Sraeyn. I have�
�� not seen him since. He would be old now, but perhaps he still lives. I reckon he was around three hundred years of age when we parted.”
“All right. I will send a word to see if he is still with us,” the priest said.
“Thank you.” Dulcea looked away, overcome with emotion. “I would appreciate that.”
She could say nothing more for a while, and Myoden stopped to regard her.
“My apologies, my lady. It is getting late. Are you hungry? You must not have eaten in a while. I will show you to a place where you can rest, bathe, and eat, and we will talk again in the morning.”
Dulcea gazed at the dark forest, thinking about the ashen ground and the lifeless plains around it. She was so tired, and the morning would bring no change. There would be a battle, and men would die. She hated what she had to do. Her whole family was dead, the enchanters’ guild had disowned her, and she no longer recognized the Silverwoods as the home she had left behind. This was not what she had wanted. Dulcea did not realize she was falling until Myoden caught her and pulled her against him. The world span a little.
“My lady?” He sounded alarmed. “Please, what is the matter? Are you ill?”
Dulcea gasped. Tears ran down her cheeks before she could stop them. She held onto him, burying her face against his shoulder. After a moment’s surprise Myoden put his arms around her and held her in an awkward embrace. He said nothing. Dulcea sniffled, grasping his robes for support even as she wished the earth could have swallowed her up whole.
Oh, Holy Damianos. What must he think? A society like theirs discouraged all immodesty while extolling the virtues of decorum and respectability, and she had put him between a rock and a hard place. Comfort her and breach an unspoken line of propriety or don’t and come out looking like a boor.
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